India's first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Bipin Rawat and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh were posthumously awarded Padma Vibhushan in the civilian honours announced by the government on the eve of 73rd Republic Day.
The list of 128 Padma awardees includes Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, former West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Bharat Biotech Chairman Krishna Ella and co-founder Suchitra Ella, Serum Institute of India Managing Director Cyrus Poonawalla and Olympic gold medallist Neeraj Chopra, singer Sonu Nigam, late Punjabi folk singer Gurmeet Bawa, former Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft Corporation Satya Nadella and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai.
Apart from General Rawat (Civil Service) and Kalyan Singh (Public Affairs), the other Padma Vibushan awardees are late Radheyshyam Khemka (Literature and Education) and Prabha Atre (Art).
There are 17 Padma Bhushan awardees and 107 Padma Shri awardees across various disciplines.
The Padma Bhushan awardees are - Ghulam Nabi Azad, actor Victor Banerjee, Punjabi singer Gurmeet Bawa, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, Krishna Ella and Suchitra Ella, Madhur Jaffery, Devendra Jhajharia, Rashid Khan, Rajiv Mehrishi, Satya Narayana Nadella, Sundararajan Pichai, Cyrus Poonawalla, Sanjaya Rajaram (posthumous), Pratibha Ray, Swami Sachidanand and Vashishth Tripathi.
Neeraj Chopra, who won a gold medal in Javelin in Tokyo Olympics last year, will be conferred Padma Shri. Singer Sonu Nigam will also be conferred Padma Shri.
Thirty-four of the awardees are women, and the list also includes 10 persons from the category of foreigners/NRI/PIO/OCI. There are 13 posthumous awardees.
(ANI)